Elizabeth Diller on Designing for the City

Elizabeth Diller's firm's role in transforming a defunct elevated railroad in Manhattan into a strolling park, the High Line, made them hometown darlings. Here, her unconventional wisdom on designing for the city

Elizabeth Diller at her Firm's Studio

Elizabeth Diller at her Firm's Studio

Architect Elizabeth Diller didn't initially set out to remake New York City's urban landscape—or, for that matter, to build anything at all. "We started out from the outside," she says of Diller Scofidio & Renfro, the conceptual design studio she founded in 1979 with her husband and Cooper Union architecture professor emeritus, Ricardo Scofidio. "But then we started undoing things from the middle." The firm's role in transforming a defunct elevated railroad in Manhattan into a strolling park, the High Line, made them hometown darlings. With their imaginative renovation of the Lincoln Center performing arts campus, Diller and her cutting-edge firm have once again won our hearts.

BLUEPRINTS

BLUEPRINTS

•An architect always has to fight for the next thing. To this day, Frank Gehry does competitions, as does Norman Foster. It didn't used to be that way in the United States, until about 10 years ago when the European system rubbed off. In Europe, you have to have a public open call. For us, it's gambling. If you are lucky, you win one in five. Really small firms don't stand a chance.

•Our firm has about 90 people. We never intended it to get this big. Ric [Scofidio] and I started the firm together. We have been a couple for a long time. Something interesting happened when Charles Renfro joined the firm in 1997 and then became a partner: He broke the tie.

•When a project comes in, we all have ideas and arguments. We beat each other up. Whoever has the best idea remains standing. The other two are a bloody mess on the floor.